Plants of Hexastylis virginica with small, cylindric-urceolate calices have been treated as a distinct species, H . memmingeri . The two calyx types are often found in the same population, however, so H . memmingeri seems unworthy of taxonomic recognition at any rank.

Prior to the study by H. L. Blomquist (1957), many botanists interpreted Hexastylis virginica in a very broad sense, so old herbarium specimens of many other species of Hexastylis are often annotated as H . virginica .